Reining in the new year

My favorite Hallmark holiday movie went something like this: A woman tried (kind of) to eat healthy (well, most of the time) during the month of December. Then, when her birthday came, she decided it was the festive season and there were parties and a holiday breakfast at work and then someone brought doughnuts and Elke sent the Cedarburg cheese ... and she ate and drank whatever she wanted.

She went to the gym, but not very often. On Jan. 1, she put on her pants and realized her lack of a strategy turned on her - it's all fun and games until you put your jeans on. So the woman told her husband, "You should do this, too" and they threw away all their chips and gave away the rest of the Christmas cookies and they ate kale and they were happy. The end.

Most of the aforementioned is true ... kale isn't making us happy (unless Andy is serving the kale in the form of his Kale Caesar - call Rubaiyat at 382-9463 for reservations). It was time for a reality check. Seriously, when the food groups coming out of your kitchen consist of cheese, scrambled eggs, red wine, more cheese and Casey's Pizza, it's time to do something before your Christmas wish list for next year includes a gift certificate for bypass surgery. My metabolism isn't what it used to be, and it was never really very great, so it's time to stop eating like I'm 20. That ship has sailed.

Pat and I made a goal for the month of January to pursue health by eschewing all alcohol (yep, all of it ), added sugars (including honey and all artificial sweeteners, but we ate natural sources like what comes in fruit) and processed food (nothing containing ingredients we couldn't pronounce, and nothing with added sugar - which is in just about everything with ingredients you can't pronounce.)

Dec. 31 marked my last glass of wine for a month - to be honest, I was ready to give it up, which tells you just how celebratory my mood had been in the weeks leading up to Christmas. On New Year's Eve, I relished in some spinach-artichoke dip and some caramel corn concoction that Tom came up with that had pretzels and chocolate mixed in - I had to put the lid on so I didn't put my face in it. Anyway, the morning of Jan. 1 came and we implemented the "Rein in the New Year" plan.

A few have asked me if we did Whole30. We didn't. And I know Whole30 has done amazing things for people and their joints are working and they are sleeping better and their hair is shiny and all of the things, but I wanted to do something more sustainable that would make us more mindful of not only what we're eating, but what we're preparing and how we're preparing it. I also am a strong believer that absolutely no one found themselves in a pants sitch by eating stuff like legumes and brown rice, and those are no-no's on Whole30. Trust me, as lovable at Pat and I are, Us - Carbs = Bad News.

So anyway, here we are in February. On Friday (Feb. 1), we toasted (with wine) successfully completing our goal with no noticeable fallout. Here are some things we learned.

No alcohol was a cinch. 
I came home from work after stressful days and didn't have a glass of wine and I was fine. We went out with friends and didn't have alcohol and no one thought we were weird (we did get some inquiries as to what we were doing, but that was out of interest, not criticism). All of our relationships carried on as usual.

We talked about it, and realized how much of our alcohol consumption was out of habit, rather than making a conscious decision to drink it. We are surrounded by pervasive messages that support - and even encourage - drinking. A lot of our social activities have centered around eating and drinking. We branched out and hosted a few game nights, drank our sparkling water out of wine glasses spiked with lemons or limes and had some great conversations with folks. We also stayed home more than we usually do, which was kind of nice, too.

The realization for me was how much I tend to use wine and food to numb a rough day or conflicted feelings. This past month forced me to find different ways to deal with things. While it wasn't always easy, it was a good lesson learned - and a good journey to continue exploring.

No added sugar was a surprisingly heavy lift.
For the first four days, I felt sluggish, foggy and tired and had a headache. I didn't sleep well. It was astonishing to me how much my body seemed to crave sugar. I had actually trained my body to crave crappy food.

Sugar (and its kissing cousin, corn syrup) is in just about everything you can buy in the store that isn't sold in its natural state. Read a few labels and you'll realize this is true - it's in everything from bread to spaghetti sauce to that seemingly innocuous roasted red pepper spread. Yoplait strawberry yogurt (one of my faves) has as much sugar in it as a glazed doughnut. It's no wonder that the average American eats 17 teaspoons of sugar a day when the recommended amount is actually 6 for women and 9 for men.

Once I went through the detox, the cravings subsided. One day I felt like eating a cupcake, but that was one day out of 31. Four day outside the challenge, and I have only had one cookie. What I did discover is that fruit tastes more robust to taste buds that haven't been desensitized and I have re-discovered the natural sweetness in other foods, such as tomatoes. Sweet!

Processed food: the good, the bad and the ugly
Staying away from processed food was for my partner, who is on a first-name basis with the staff at our local Kwik Star. Pat loves stuff like breakfast sandwiches with sausage, cheddar wursts, chips and pizza slices. And I'm not going to say that I've never enjoyed a bag of chips or a slice of pizza from a gas station (anyone who has been on a road trip with me knows I can't claim that), but it's usually not my default treat.

Turns out, not all processed food is created equal, and the label "processed" gets a bad rap. If you've ever eaten bagged spinach, baby carrots or frozen strawberries, you're technically eating processed food. And we ate those things during the month of January because they're minimally processed for convenience. What I will say about this is I tried both pre-packaged baby carrots and slicing and cutting my own whole carrots from the store, and the latter had much deeper flavor - the baby carrots didn't really taste like much in comparison. Consuming food from its natural state matters.

What we were avoiding was the "hyper-processed" food like frozen pizza, boxed dinners and fast food. These foods almost always have high sugar and sodium content, which is by design - they go down faster and easier and leave you wanting more. It's a win-win for the food industry but bad news for your waistline. To be clear, I'm not swearing off Culver's snack packs or chicken strips forever. But on Friday, I had a fried cheese curd and it tasted like I was eating table salt by the spoonful. I'll eat processed foods (cookie dough happens), but I'll work on making them more the exception than the rule after last month.

On being aware of your bullshit
A month abstaining from some of my poorer habits will not get me any closer to being the poster child for healthy eating. I eat stuff like Bugles mixed with Peanut Butter M&Ms and crush potato chips on my cottage cheese, for crying out loud. But January did help me take stock of some of the bullshit I've talked myself into. Stuff like:

"I can't possibly do this."
I actually can. It was much easier having Pat along for the ride, but anyone can do anything for a month. I'm actually pretty proud of myself.

"I don't have time."
When did we decide we didn't have enough time to cook? That chopping an onion was just far to taxing on my busy schedule? That meal planning was as complicated as trigonometry? That I'm just too busy to work out? My iPad started sending me notices about how much screen time I average on a daily basis. I have plenty of time to do the aforementioned. If I'm being truthful, "I don't feel like it" is a much more accurate statement. Once we started planning meals and cooking together, it became an enjoyable way to wind down at the end of the day - and the leftovers worked great for lunches and days when we didn't have time to do much cooking.

"I've earned it/I deserve it."
Eating a salad for lunch doesn't negate four pieces of pizza and half a bottle of wine for dinner. You can't rationalize your way around balanced eating and you can't exercise your way out of a bad diet.

"Everyone knows you ..."
Everyone's health journey is different. Stop comparing yourself to others. And the scale is not a definitive measure of healthy living.

"As much as you want."
Americans in particular seem to love this. "Don't eat carbs and you can eat as much as you want." "Don't eat fat and you can eat as much as you want." Like everything in life, eating is a balancing act. There are very few "as much as you wants" that exist without eventually having some sort of negative effect.

"Everyone will think I'm ..."
I seriously need to stop caring about this in all aspects of my life. Join me, won't you?

It wasn't perfect or pretty, but we did it ... and we learned a lot in the process.

And my pants fit great.